The suburbs lacking in quality. An absence of collective identity in highly-populated built-up districts

Agnès VILLECHAISE

pp. 351-374

The category of the masses, as distant from the working class of yesterday as from the social « dropouts » as the media, and even some professionals, abusively call them today, would seem to resist any type of simple sociological characterisation. First of ail, the « suburbs » are defined as a heterogeneous and complex area ; and the multiple styles of daily life of its inhabitants is not easily defined. However, a survey carried out in a built-up area near Bordeaux bas shown one characteristic of people living in this type of suburb : a feeling of frustration due to the difference between belonging to the middle class model but being economically uncapble of adhering completely to that model. This frustration, which defines the pauperized middle class, leads to the distress of a population which only feels its failures. which is divided by internal conflicts and unacceptance, bas no collective identity and is left to live in a private sphere using a purely individual strategy of resistance.